


Remaking

by MusicalLuna



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cap 2, Clint Barton & Tony Stark Friendship, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Needs a Hug, Clint is always 15 Minutes Late, Explicit Language, Gen, No Sex, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Tag, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony is Terrible at Delivering Bad News, Where Was Clint Barton During Captain America 2?, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:08:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1527431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalLuna/pseuds/MusicalLuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>littlejehan:</p><p>    I bet Clint was on a mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remaking

**Author's Note:**

> Written based on tumblr's littlejehan's [not-fic.](http://dragonnan.tumblr.com/post/82831770899/skysalla-agent-hils-coulson-gazzymouse)

Clint's in South Africa when he's made.

He stuffs the emergency comm from the tiny pocket of his glove into his ear and blurts out his extraction request, heart pounding in his chest as he crab walks through the caravan of trucks, trying to avoid the shouting, gun-toting members of the group he's infiltrated.

All he hears in reply is static.

He repeats the request, flicks at the stupid thing, and skids along gravel. It scrapes the hell out of his arm when he falls. Still, all he hears is static.

"If anybody can hear me," he says in a low voice, "I've been compromised. This is Hawkeye, requesting immediate extraction. Repeat, this is Hawkeye requesting immediate extraction. Please don't fucking leave me out here," he breathes to himself. A quiet sense of panic is starting to seethe up from the pit of his stomach. Part of him's been expecting this for months. It had taken a good half a year before the S.H.I.E.L.D. shrinks agreed to let him back out in the field and much as Fury's said New York's water under the bridge, it's been creeping up to bite him in the ass in subtle ways ever since.

The soft crackle in his ear remains unbroken and he mutters a fervent, "Fuck. On my own, I guess. Okay. Can't say I don't deserve it."

Behind him, a voice says, " _Ja, sal jy kry wat jy verdien_."

"Shit," Clint sighs.

~

An hour later--Clint guesses it's been an hour anyway, since the sun had gone down while they were beating the shit out of him--he's lying at the bottom of a steep incline in the dark, staring up at the stars, nova-bright pain pulsing up his neck and down his arm from what he's pretty sure is a fractured collarbone. Probably half of his ribs are bruised and his nose is broken _again_ and there's a graze from a bullet on the outside of his left thigh. He's lucky to be alive, but considering he's ten miles away from the nearest town, and blown, and in possession of nothing more than the clothes on his back, he still feels pretty fucked.

Eventually, he acknowledges that it's getting colder the longer he lies here and since nobody's coming for him, if he's going to not-die, it's up to him to make it happen. He has to get back for Tasha.

So he grits his teeth and forces himself to his feet, spitting out a steady stream of curses. It feels like a lit torch is pressed to his shoulder. He's been staring up at the sky long enough he knows which way is west, so he heads for the sea.

Every step drives a white hot poker into his chest.

~

It's late afternoon the next day when he finally, finally makes it to somewhere with buildings. The pain in his shoulder is constant, sharp enough he can barely breathe. Lack of food and water isn't doing him any favors either. Pretty much the only thing that's kept him putting one foot in front of the other is the thought of Natasha, Natasha, Natasha.

He can't leave her alone.

Somehow, he's got to get to a phone. He collapses in a shadow at the rear of one of the structures and hides there until dark.

Then he breaks into one of the buildings with unlit windows. He half expects to find it empty and phoneless, but thank fuck, it's not, and when he picks up the receiver he slides down against the wall as relief weakens his knees. There's a dial tone.

He dials the secure number that's supposed to connect him with his handler, but the number's out of order. He hadn't really expected it to work, so the disappointment's mild. He dials a secure HQ number next and that doesn't go through either. Clint starts to wonder if they've somehow figured out it's him and blocked his number, which is insane, he knows, but he's not exactly thinking clearly right now.

Then he dials Coulson's direct number. When that doesn't go through, something cold and prickling winds it's way through him. Why the fuck aren't any of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s numbers working?

It goes against protocol, but fuck it. He calls Natasha.

Her number, thank god, thank _god_ , goes through, but to voicemail. He leaves her a message, tries to pack as much information in as he can without potentially compromising either of them.

"Hey, Tash, it's me." His voice cracks a little. "I was just, ah, wondering if you were still planning to go to South Beach this weekend. I tried calling Maria, and she said she'd take a message for me, but I just wanted to connect with you myself. If you're still going, I was wondering if I could hitch a ride? My car needs to go in for repairs, it won't make it any further than North Carolina, if that. I'd offer to pay gas or lunch, but, uh, I'm tapped out until payday. Also, my battery's dying, so if you get this before I call you back, try calling Anderson, guy owes me a favor." He sighs and closes his eyes. "I'd really love to see you in that new black bikini you got, so I hope we can work this out."

When that's done, he has to give himself a minute to breathe because panic is clawing at the back of his throat, tightening it to the point of pain, his eyes wet with tears. After he pulls himself back together, he dials Steve Rogers' number. Those two have been going on a lot of missions together, maybe...

Rogers doesn't answer either. Clint leaves him a message, too, just a brusque, "Rogers, it's me, if you get this, ask Natasha to call me, okay, please."

After that he's tapped out. He doesn't know anybody fucking else, S.H.I.E.L.D. is...S.H.I.E.L.D is all he's got. Everything he has, except Nat.

He's been in here for almost an hour, desperately pushing his luck, and he's just about ready to haul his ass off the floor when he thinks, _Tony Stark_.

After New York, Stark had given them all his number, his _private_ number, and told them to call if they ever needed anything. Clint never expected to actually use it, because yeah right, why's the guy gonna help him out? So they saved the world once together. He probably only gave it to them for show.

But he's out of options and-- Fuck.

He dials the number.

It rings three times and Clint's already written it off in his head, so when the line goes live and Stark says, " _Yeah, talk to me_ ," he doesn't respond right away.

" _Hello?_ "

"Stark?" Clint blurts, stunned.

He can hear the frown in Tony's voice when he says, slow and drawn out, " _Yeees, who's this? Do I know you? Because if I don't_ \--"

"It's me, Stark. Legolas."

There's a beat of shocked silence and then, he practically shouts, " _Barton! Are you-- Where the hell are you? Are you all right?_ "

"I'm--"

" _Wait, have you been on a job? Where are you? Do you have any idea what's been going on?_ "

"I'm in South Africa," Clint cuts in, raising his voice. Tony won't have a clue what he's talking about if he tries code. He'll just have to hope.

" _What? Where? Cape Town?_ "

"Outside it, yeah," Clint says.

" _Can you get to the airport?_ "

Clint scrubs at his forehead and tries to think. Does he know Cape Town well enough to find the airport? "Yeah," he says finally. "Probably."

" _Do it,_ " Tony says. " _I'll be there in nineteen hours. We need to deal with this habit of yours of being fifteen minutes late to everything_."

Before Clint can ask what the hell's going on, Tony hangs up. Goddamn Stark.

Having a mission to accomplish helps keep him from losing it though. He drags himself to his feet, takes a deep breath, and hobbles outside to pick his way out of the mountains.

~

It takes him nearly the full nineteen hours to get to Cape Town International. Coming down the mountain with his collarbone is fucking torture. And he knows torture.

He hobbles his way into the city and winds up crumpling in an alley next to a dumpster. He's not totally sure how long he lies there, but at some point an old woman pokes him in the ribs with a walking stick and pushes a paper cup into his hands. He winces as his shoulder pulses with pain and nearly drops the cup. The woman makes a distressed noise.

Whatever's in the cup smells fucking amazing and Clint does his best to force his grimace into a smile.

" _Eet_ ," she orders.

Oh. So soup probably.

He sips at it and it _is_ fucking amazing. Just the right temperature and possibly the most delicious thing he's had in weeks. He gulps it down, and when he looks up again, the woman is hobbling away down the street.

" _Dankie!_ " he yells after her.

She flaps a hand dismissively and disappears.

This isn't the first time a stranger's offered Clint help when he needed it. Apparently he has one of those faces, or maybe he just makes super pathetic noises when he's been fucked over, but there are people pretty much all over the globe that he owes his gratitude to, if not his life. He's a big fan of rewarding good karma and so most of his paychecks go back to people like this, making some improvement to their neighborhood or town or whatever, or even just funding a trip back so he can bash in the heads of people causing trouble. It's not like he needs anything else, so why not use the money for good stuff like that?

The soup brings back some of his energy and he steals some laundry off a line--guilty though it makes him feel--and makes himself a sling. It helps a little.

Later, when he's skulking around near the airport, trying not to look suspicious and wondering with not a little bit of anxiety how the hell Tony's going to find him, he turns around and runs right into the guy.

Then nearly bites his tongue off choking down a scream.

He thinks he passes out then or comes close enough to it, because next thing he knows he's on Stark's private plane lying on a push-down bed that's more comfortable than some of the actual beds he's slept in during his life.

Tony's bent over him, brow furrowed, jacket stripped off, holding something that makes the abrasions on Clint's arm sting.

Clint hisses and Tony's sharp eyes flick up to his face. "Collarbone, huh? And road rash? Bootprint on your ribs. Who'd you piss off?"

Clint rubs at his forehead. "AIM splinter cell."

Tony's expression goes dark. "If Fury weren't dead already, I might kill him myself. Why the _fuck_ didn't anyone tell me AIM was still in operation?"

But Clint barely hears him, his hand fisting in Tony's sleeve. "Fury's _what?_ "

Tony blinks a few times and the anger fades into an open, child-like expression of, _oh_. "Shit, you don't know."

"I don't know what?" Clint demands and remembers calling Anderson and getting no reply, calling HQ and getting more of the same, fucking _Coulson_. Panic starts to swell in his gorge. "What the fuck do you mean Fury's dead?"

Tony holds up his hands, frazzled. "Hey, I don't know anything for sure, okay. From what I hear though... Fury's been assassinated."

Clint just stares at him and Tony goes on in a hurry.

“Maybe Cap and Romanova, too--” He swallows thickly when Clint's hand goes white-knuckled around his sleeve. _Natasha?_ No. “There were—helicarriers, three of them. Helicarriers using _my_ tech. They went down in the Potomac. From what I've been able to put together, they were under Hydra control. Around the same time the helicarriers went into the river, somebody opened the floodgates on S.H.I.E.L.D.--all their secrets, all their data, dumped it on the internet. Stuff that goes back fifty goddamn years.”

Clint's hand goes loose. “Everything?”

Tony grimaces and shifts, reaches up with one hand to smooth his shirt over the center of his chest. “Ah. Looks like, yeah. It's—petabytes worth.”

Petabytes, what the fuck are petabytes? More importantly, if all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intel has been dumped onto the _internet_...

Jesus.

“I think your career as a spy is over,” Tony says quietly.

Clint wants to knock his lights out.

“It's...a lot to take in,” Tony admits and slumps back in his seat. “Hell, I've had a twenty-six hour head-start on you and I'm still reeling. There's some wobbly street footage from yesterday afternoon of some racoon-eyed hobo terrorizing DC. Rogers made this impassioned speech at S.H.I.E.L.D. about Hydra and resistance or some shit that there's maybe half a clip of—the guy's a revolutionary, who knew?”

“Hydra attacked S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ?” Clint says, trying desperately to understand.

Tony looks at him and then sits forward, leaning on his knees. “No. S.H.I.E.L.D. was Hydra. _Hydra_ was S.H.I.E.L.D. They've been inside the organization since...well, I'm not sure since when, I haven't quite dug that part up yet, but a _long_ fucking time. JARVIS is finding evidence that they've been responsible for inciting some of the incidents that started wars, coups, things like that.”

Hydra inside S.H.I.E.L.D.

Clint has an awful moment where he realizes Loki wasn't where his unmaking started. Most of his adult life he's worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. And if S.H.I.E.L.D. is Hydra, he's been doing things at the behest of others—of evil sons of bitches for--

“Shit,” he hears himself say, voice wobbly and weak. His stomach lurches.

“Hey, hey,” he hears Tony say distantly. “Don't—shit, Barton--”

Something smooth and plastic is forced into his hands and he crumples forward puking and puking. Fuck, this can't be happening.

Stark mutters something and slips away, leaving him there with his hot poker shoulder and the smell of his own vomit. He's shaking and he wants to scream, wants to run, wants to curl up in a ball, wants to know _what the fuck is going on_.

There's a television in one corner of the cabin displaying the news. Clint watches it go by numbly. There's nothing of worth being reported.

At one point he realizes how absurd it is that the lifestyle of lies he's built his everything on has finally been revealed to be _yet more lies_ and he breaks into hysterical laughter. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Stark shooting him wary glances.

They're somewhere over the Atlantic north of South America when he pulls the shreds of himself back around his shoulders and croaks, “'ve you found anything yet?”

Stark looks up from the tablet he has laid out in front of a series of holographic screens. His hair is wild from the way he's been digging his fingers through it. Clint wonders how long it's been since he slept, why this matters so much to him. “A lot actually,” he says after a beat. “Nothing about Fury or Steve or Natasha.” He shakes his head. “If they're alive, I'm betting they're laying low after all that. The US Government is _not_ happy.”

“Wonder why,” Clint drawls, looking at the screens.

Tony's quiet for a moment. Then he says, “We'll find them. One way or another--”

“Yeah,” Clint says.

“And you can stay with me.”

That gets Clint's attention. He turns his head. “Excuse me?”

“Look, the Triskelion was destroyed,” Tony says, flicking up an image of the destroyed building with the half-submerged wreckages of the helicarriers in the background. Clint's stomach clenches at the sight. “I'm betting if you had much of anything, it was in barracks there, am I right?”

Clint doesn't answer.

“I'm done with this whole...scattered across the globe thing. _Done_. Last year everyone thought I was dead. I almost was. Now this? If they're alive—no, fuck that, even if they _aren't_. You, me, Bruce, Thor--if I can ever get past Foster's damn intern to talk to him. We should be together. So when shit like this happens--”

“All for one and one for all?” Clint murmurs.

His shaky sense of self likes the idea though. Of a team. Of having each other's backs like they did in New York.

“Yeah,” Tony says. “We put Steve in charge. Give us a good moral compass—I mean, the guy just took on the government of the country who's flag he wears on his chest. So we know he's good for it. No bias. And you can't tell me the guy's dead because he blew up some helicarriers—he crashed a plane into the Arctic for Christ's sake.” He taps the table. “And I maybe did a few renovations with this in mind. There may or may not be a floor with an archery range and your name on it.”

Clint stares at him.

Tony shrugs. “I like to have contingencies.”

“Move in with you,” Clint says, turning it over in his head. “Yeah, all right. What the hell. I got nowhere else to go.” He pauses. “We're gonna be a target.”

Tony snorts and waves at the screens, at the footage of the smoking wreckage of the Triskelion. “We're already a target.”

Something funny and squirming is lighting up inside Clint's chest. For the second time in two years, he's having to slot himself back together and figure out how to exist, how to just _be_. He never in a million years would have guessed that he'd be doing it with Tony Stark giving him a leg up, but it's something he thinks he could get used to. “What's our next move?” he says.

Tony grins.


End file.
